Many people on the Central Coast spent Superbowl Sunday cheering on their favorite teams.
While there were faithful San Francisco 49ers fans and Kansas City Chiefs fans, others were on the fence like Joel Carlson of San Luis Obispo.
“I guess I'm going to have to go with the Chiefs, go with the new boy and follow him along because I just can't go for the San Francisco 49ers,” Carlson said.
Playing football for Cal Poly, Sam Huard is passionate about the sport and excited about the match up.
“We have some friends throwing a superbowl party today so a lot of them are niners fans and we wanted to represent our team today so we had to come to the store at the last second and get some merch,” Huard said.
Huard isn't the only one grabbing last-minute gear. Local sporting goods stores have seen an increase in customers for the past several days.
“For the last two weeks phone calls every five minutes,” said Jordyn Castilo, an employee at The Sports Forum in Downtown San Luis Obispo.
The Sports Forum received a surplus of 49ers gear once it was decided the team was heading to the Super Bowl.
“Business has been booming. I cannot hold on to anything 49ers. It is almost impossible. We have been sold out of our 49ers jersey since October,” Castilo said.
Sportcard Fantasy’s in Santa Maria has seen a similar boost in sales.
“We got in a lot of stuff even for the Chiefs. Niners stuff has been hot as anything and we sold a lot of Chief’s stuff as well,” said owner Kurt Miller.
Miller says they will have Super Bowl hoodies, T-shirts and hats available starting Monday. The merchandise was ordered before the playoffs and Miller says he brought in more 49ers merch than he did Chiefs gear.
